In the sunny days of spring, you won’t even notice the tiny young
of some beautiful spiders emerging in your garden. But keep
watching. By late summer or early fall, you may be able to see
these large, striking spiders as they trap and eat insect pests.
|
The golden garden spider (Argiope aurantia) can be found from
southern Canada through the lower 48 United States, Mexico and
Central America as far south as Costa Rica.
Garden spiders are fairly easy to identify due to their
distinctive yellow and black abdomen and silvery-white head. The
female sits upside down in her web with her legs in an “X”
formation.
At first glance, you may notice the zigzag pattern characteristic
of a garden spider web. This pattern is believed to help
strengthen the web, camouflage the spider or attract insect prey.
Big
Garden spiders are big. Really big. The adult female’s body can
be over an inch long. She’s much larger than the male, which is
less than a third her size. The male can often be found to the
side of the female’s web or in a small web nearby.
Around September or October, the female garden spider will lay
her eggs in an egg sac that looks like a brown fig. She attaches
the sac to one side of her web, where she will watch it until the
first frost.
The eggs hatch in the fall. But the spider hatchlings remain in
the cozy egg sac to overwinter until spring. The garden spider’s
life span is a little more than a year.
Are these huge, gorgeous spiders poisonous? All spiders are.
They’re carnivorous, and they use their venom to capture prey.
Most spiders, however, will bite only when provoked.
Rarely bites
Garden spiders, in particular, aren’t aggressive. If you disturb
it, a garden spider will vibrate the web and try to look larger
to discourage predators. If this doesn’t work, it will drop to
the ground and hide.
The garden spider will use its venom only as a last resort,
because it won’t be able to capture a meal until it can produce
venom to replace what was lost.
Garden spider venom isn’t toxic to humans, anyway. If one does
bite you, it should cause only brief discomfort and minor redness
in the area bitten.
The benefits of having a garden spider in your yard or garden
greatly outweigh the negatives. As opportunistic feeders, they
eat many insect pests, such as moths that can infest your garden
or flies that can invade your home. These magnificent spiders are
welcome alternatives to pesticides.
